


Clothed With The Wind’s Wings

by CopperBeech



Series: Absent Without Leave [5]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angel Wings, Angst, Chocolate, Communication, Consent, Don't copy to another site, Emotional Aziraphale, Emotional Crowley (Good Omens), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, First Time, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Insightful Beelzebub, M/M, Seaside Resorts, Sedition, lovers' quarrels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-20 02:34:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20667878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperBeech/pseuds/CopperBeech
Summary: Crowley has his angel, but he spent six thousand years without knowing it would ever be possible, and the pain lingers. Sometimes it makes him ratty. Sometimes it takes a demon to know another demon's heart.Also, there's something of an Underground Railroad situation in Hell. With Cadbury Bars.“D’ye think we did that right? She said act afraid of her.”“You never know who’s watchin’. Go canny.”“I’ve got Turkish Delight.”“I’ve got a Star Bar.”“We’re meant to really do the temptin’, like. To make it look good.”“But she said don’t eat all the chocolate eggs. That means we can havesome.”“Shut your gob, someone’s coming.”





	Clothed With The Wind’s Wings

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't exactly explicit, but teeters in the borderlands in places, so I'm open to opinions about the rating. Not quite as comic as the general tone of the series, but sometimes things get serious.
> 
> Will make zero sense if you haven't followed the series so far.

“I am sure you all are perfectly aware why you were sent here,” said Beelzebub unsmiling – as if she ever spoke any other way – to the three scruffy demons lined up in front of her workstation. Their hands were clasped behind their backs and each of them – two male demons and one female – projected a cowed, abject look of genuine apprehension. Even the anole behind the ear of one had flushed a distressed reddish colour.

“You were reported to me because it seems you have found time to pass around _confectionary_ from the mortal plane.” She opened a drawer and tossed several foil-wrapped packets onto the blotter. “Aero Bars. _Dairy_ Milk. Digestive biscuits. You are _demons_, what have you got to digest? This?”

The three hung their heads silently, looking even more abject than before, if that were possible.

“Can you explain yourselves?”

“It were – something we’d heard about, marm. There was summun over in Mammon’s department as brought ’em back when he went to tempt people into cheating on transport. They do the money stuff, you know.”

“I _know_ what Mammon’s department does. His staff are his problem. Is this all?”

“We ate the rest, marm.”

“Well. Clearly I need to find more work for you if your hands are idle enough to be _socializing_ with other department staff. I am sending you up.”

“Up, marm?”

“Yes. Up. I have authorized a portal, and I am sending you for a day to do some practice temptation. Nothing any respectable demon couldn’t do asleep with his hands tied. Are you familiar with human children?”

“We’ve seen em, marm.”

“Since you are so interested in this aspect of mortal life, you will tempt them. With these.” Reaching into empty air, she extended one, two, three backpacks mostly full of crinkling objects. “Do not offer them directly. I am told that causes difficulties. Leave them where they may be found, then place the idea in their heads of taking them without permission. A life of sin can start with a single transgression.” She stood. “And – “

“Yes, marm?”

A thoughful survey of the three nervous faces. Something that was almost a smile quirked the corner of her lips.

“Don’t eat all the Cadbury eggs yourself,” she said to the tallest of the three. “Also, change into the bathing costumes discreetly. None of that launderette carelessness.“ Her expression hardened again. “Dismissed. You will find your portal on the third level.”

* * *

Asmodeus passed by just in time to see the three backpacked demons trudging off toward the stair.

“Aren’t they from Maintenance?”

“They wanted training,” said Beelzebub. “Promising workers. We have lost a few too many demons that had to be broken from duty up there. Going native, falling for temptations instead of performing them.”

“Yes. I’d heard.”

She hoped his toothy grin didn’t mean something sly. Then again, his grin was always toothy.

When he’d moved on, she lifted a piece of wavy linoleum under her workstation and drew out a mobile phone.

* * *

“How much else of your life," asked Crowley. "was secret from me?"

“It was a gentleman’s club, Crowley. I went there for the dancing.”

“Of course you did.”

“Don’t be jealous.”

“I didn’t say I was jealous. Just don’t like secrets.”

“It wasn’t meant to be a secret. It was just a place I spent time. Enjoying some of the finer things. And – sometimes just… to sense what was happening in the rooms upstairs, and – imagine it could be me and you. …I didn’t know when I’d see you again.”

“Well, whose fault was that? Wasn’t me who got all pious and talked about _fraternising.”_

“Crowley, we’ve been all over this.”

“You had to know how I felt.”

“I didn't have the first idea. You never let on. That posturing _indifference _of yours – surely you could tell I cared.”

“I bloody didn’t. You were always so - so holy.”

“What should I have been?”

The angel shook his head and sighed, with the demeanour of someone who is pointedly scaling back towards rational objectivity. Crowley had these moods, and he’d already been in one this morning when Aziraphale let something slip about the Hundred Guineas Club. Crowley had simply never been interested enough in the gavotte to care where he’d learned it.

“It’s been _six thousand years_, Crowley. There's bound to be a good deal we don’t know about one another. Probably far more than the things we do know.”

“Well, when are we going to talk about them? Never?”

“Crowley, you’re being unreasonable.”

“Oh. Because there’s so much to be reasonable about.”

“There’s no call for this.”

“Still got that little bit of Heaven hanging around you, don’t you? Always got to be right. I’m jussst the poor demon who hasss to be taught to be _reasonable._”

“Crowley, I didn't mean it that way.”

“Didn’t you.” The demon picked up his jacket. “Why don’t you have another productive day not selling books to your customers. They’re used to you keeping everything to yourself.”

“Crowley – where are you going?”

“I’ll think of something,” the demon said.

The bells on the inside of the door jangled harshly as he slammed out.

* * *

The three demons were halfway down a dank stairwell before anyone spoke.

“D’ye think we did that right? She said act afraid of her.”

“You never know who’s watchin’. Go canny.”

“I’ve got Turkish Delight in here.”

“I’ve got a Star Bar.”

“We’re meant to really do the temptin’, like. To make it look good.”

“But she said don’t eat _all_ the chocolate eggs. That means we can have some.”

“Shut your gob, someone’s coming.”

“Here we are.”

* * *

“Yes, I will be in St. James’ Park by six. Anthony said the waterfowl are a favorite of theirs. I am supposed to bring bread. He said it would make me easy to find because you would only have to look for the crowd of ducks. Do you like ducks?” A pause. “Yes, his sense of humour is sometimes peculiar.” Another pause. “I have a new dress.”

Instead of slipping the phone back under the lino, she put it deep in her jacket. The wards she wove around it were so strong she could feel the illusion of absence over her heart.

Did she have a heart? Up there she did; she had felt it beating when she danced. She started to reach for the pulse point of her left wrist, then thought better of it. It was better not to try to make sense of some things.

* * *

The always-hopeful patrons of A. Z. Fell and Co., accustomed to at most being allowed to sit by the hour on the squashy settees and turn the leaves of beautifully repaired early editions of Carlyle or H. G. Wells, observed that Mr. Fell was so far from his normal self that day that he actually sold a book, and about an hour later, another one. The woman who had been longing to buy a near-mint-condition first edition of the T. E. Shaw _Odyssey_ was emboldened and went so far as to bring it to the shopkeeper’s desk, but when he began to fuss in a drawer for a receipt form, she felt sorry for him and pulled out her phone, pretending it had vibrated. “Oh, dear, I’m so sorry, I must _run_. Perhaps tomorrow, if you’ll hold it for me.”

The shop closed early. Not that that was terribly odd, in itself.

* * *

The demon Beelzebub felt Crowley approaching behind her before she saw him, as demons can. The light in St. James’ Park was angling low, but the ducks remained on shift, though even the agents of foreign governments had mostly gone home to tea.

“Brought you some bread in case you ran out,” said Crowley. He dropped a paper sack onto the bench, then swung his length around the end of it to do something that might have been sitting in a non-Euclidean universe.

“They are diverting,” said Beelzebub. “That one over there with two bars on his tail pecks everyone away but does not finish the bread after he does.”

“Yeah, some humans are like that too.” Crowley looked her up and down. She had stuck with Gothic black but was sporting a red velvet ribbon choker, with a jeweled fly above the hollow of her throat. Her collection of rings was becoming remarkable.

“Meeting up with the lad again, then.”

“Yes. We are having dinner. Not at the Ritz.”

“Student budget.”

“Then there is a new club, and then… I will get to ride the train at night. I have not done that.”

She looked at him searchingly.

“You are disquieted about something. Have we anything to fear?”

Crowley crossed his arms behind his head, slunk down another order of magnitude on the abused bench. “Naaah,” he said. “Just been a bit of an eejit, isn’t it what I do?” He reached into the bag and tore off a chunk of bread, lobbed it at a mallard. “I get up on the wrong side of the bed, like – not enough sleep, and he _never _sleeps and I need so much, I can sleep for _years…” _

She left the silence there. After a moment he shrugged and took the invitation to fill it.

“ ‘N sometimes it gets in amongst me that we had so many years when we could have been –– didn’t –– not a word – well, never mind. Made a tit of myself, said some stupid things, haven’t been back to the shop since this morning.“ He twisted the white-gold ring around the third finger of his left hand with the thumb and long fingers of the right. “_This_ should make me stop worrying about it, shouldn’t it?” He held the ring up into the fading light. “Aaaah, Anthony Crowley’s just a _great _old_ tosser_ who makes a pretty poor showing as a demon anyhow. Just the letdown after oh, you know, saving the world, that kind of thing... Maybe I’ll bring him a book he doesn’t have yet. Or a box of chocolates.”

Beelzebub reached into her string bag and held up an Aero bar.

“Do you think this would do it?” she asked solemnly.

Crowley didn’t look for a moment, then shattered into a giggle that was slightly hysterical. It wasn’t that funny. He smacked one eye with the back of his wrist, rubbed it, knocking the dark glasses askew.

“Crowley. Is it not odd that the one who showed me how much a demon could _care_ is pretending to care so much less than he does?”

“Aah, shouldn’t have said anything – “

“Crowley. Your heart is in his hand. I see it. Would he injure you deliberately? Would you injure him? I remember the words of the ceremony.”

Crowley tore away another large hunk of bread. He wasn’t watching where he slung it and it hit a lower-order functionary of Serbian Intelligence on the ear. The man spent the rest of the evening wondering whether to file a report with his handlers.

_“Will you cause him pain?” _Beelzebub recited. _“I may." “Is that your intent?' “No.”_

Crowley was gazing at the ground now. Traffic noise fell into the silence.

“I had a reason to think about those words. Look at me, Crowley. Am I the same demon I once was? But I am a demon. He is mortal. He will grow old and die, I will not. One day it will have to end – one day very soon. Particularly as we measure time. He thinks I work outside the city, and stay with friends when I come to London. He can never know what I really am – it would break him. And yet I am sitting here waiting to go and dance with him, and ride the train.” She took a piece of the bread then, and tossed it as if this were another fascinating, new thing. "You, at least, can know the truth of one another."

Crowley’s hand was over his eyes now, the sunglasses pushed up on his forehead.

“I made a choice and would not take it back. And I was able to make it because of you, and him, and what you became to each other. Because you saved the world so that you could be together in it."

“I think that’s your lad waving now,” said Crowley in a voice that was not like his own. She rolled past the distraction.

“You taught me to choose bravely, not to fear mistakes, as we are told to do in Hell _and_ Heaven. If you made one, the remedy is as close as your heart. Which is given. So is his. I do not sense that will change.”

The force of personality hadn't wavered.

The silhouette in the distance was definitely Chaz. When she turned back to Crowley, he was gone.

* * *

The junior demons had come up tolerably close to Brighton Pier, already sporting wristbands for the day’s admission. It was early in the year, but warm for it, and children were everywhere. They decided to pace themselves, and left a chocolate on the seat of a ride here, on an arcade game there, meanwhile sampling all the rides and swapping back and forth until each one had tasted the three flavors of ice cream they settled on. The ocean was endlessly fascinating. The only free water in Hell drips down the walls. After a couple of hours one of them remembered about the bathing costumes.

“She miracles herself into ‘er clothes, she does,” said the one Crowley had dubbed Winkin. “Seen it.”

“Let’s try it.”

It took a few experiments. One day-tripper creased his brows curiously at the delicately boned young woman in a nineteenth-century bathing costume and trainers, who should have been colder than she acted, but decided it was some sort of student foolishness. You saw everything at Brighton.

* * *

“Was that Anthony back in the park?” asked Chaz after they had danced away the first set. “I was waving but you didn’t see me.”

“Yes. He got a call, he had to go. I am sorry he missed you.”

“How are they doing? I need to drop by Fell’s again soon. _Mad_ rabbit hole of old books. You’ve been there?”

“No. I mean, not to linger. It is an omission I should remedy.”

Chaz looked at his watch. “How much longer d’you want to dance? Train out of Waterloo in forty minutes, one after that’s the last.”

“I am content.”

“Let’s go.”

* * *

When Crowley returned to the bookshop, the door was off the latch.

Chamber music was sounding faintly, ethereally, from the angel’s private space at the back of the shop. Crowley tried to open and shut the door silently, though the bells gave off the ghost of a chime as he seated the latch and turned the lock.

He rolled his weight from heel to toe deliberately, not to be stealthy, but because some sort of reverence seemed called for. The last time he had been in a place of reverence the floor had burned his feet. It almost did so now.

The angel was seated in the Queen Anne chair to the side of his desk, a book in his lap, a glass of dark-red wine in his hand. A decanter was on the desk, beside another, empty glass. Aziraphale looked up, a bright sheen to his blue eyes.

“I was hoping to see you, Crowley. I took delivery of this extraordinary Malbec today. It’s breathed exactly enough.” He put the book aside and sat forward. “Please – “

His eyes squeezed shut and his face worked. The next words came out in something between an intake of air and an undignified squeak.

“ – _please_ always come back to me.” The exhale shook.

Crowley was there in a heartbeat, easing the crystal glass out of the angel’s hand and setting it down carefully. He wouldn’t want it broken. The demon went down on one knee in front of the stodgy, ridiculous chair, gangling limbs like a spider’s bent every which way, arms flung around Aziraphale cinch-tight.

“Forgive me? I love –”

“I was rather hoping you would forgive _me_.”

The final Allegro of the quartet fell silent. Crowley laid his left hand on the angel’s, lifting them into the puddle of lamplight so that it glanced off the rings.

“We’re together now,” he said. “These rings are like -- your arms always around me, mine around you. Safe. Safe place to let out how much I hurt all those years.” The angel’s arms went around his shoulders, forehead dropping to the parting of his beech-red locks. “Sometimes I'm still there. Feeling like I'll always be _the demon_ to you. Someone who can't know you. But it was wrong of me. To hurt _you_ over it.”

Aziraphale tipped his face up with a watery smile.

"You didn't mean to, any more than I did. Only I did know _myself_ so little, for so long." He stroked back a stray curl from the demon's forehead. "So, no decamping to Alpha Centauri?"

Crowley smiled in spite of himself and shook his head.

“We have six thousand years of catching up to do, my dear. In so many ways. It won’t happen in a night. Or a hundred nights.”

“Let’s see what we can make happen in a night,” the demon said.

* * *

“Hold on, I’ll get the light. I got some wonderful stuff last week. Been saving it up for us. Take your coat, miss?”

Chaz hung it in the inadequate foyer closet, next to the lavatory door which he had made sure to discreetly close before leaving. He switched on the sound system, softly; it was late and he didn’t want anyone banging on the door.

“That train we passed was the last one back in, you know.”

“I know.”

* * *

The light was just enough to see by in the rooms above the shop, the voices muffled, as though anyone was anywhere near to hear.

“My darling. You know I worship you.”

“That’s full-on blasphemy, angel. ‘M I rubbing off on you?”

“No, it isn’t. Let me – kneel, and show you.”

A little fumbling of garments. Frivolous miracles sometimes seem too glib for the situation. A soft gasp.

“I worship all the beauties of this world, this beautiful imperfect world, in you.”

“Ssss. That’s – good, angel.”

“This is like brushing silk along my cheek. – This is like touching my mouth to fruit still warm from the sun."

"Oh -- hhh."

“This is the taste of salt on the sea air… and this is the whisper of the wind in seagrass.”

A shivering, choked sound and a muted whine. 

“This is the opening of my lips in praise.”

* * *

“Is this all right?”

“Why would you not think so?”

“It’s just - we haven’t gone this far. I know all the girlies go in for a bit of snogging, I wasn't sure – “

“No. It is all right.”

Quiet for a bit.

“Am – I your first?”

“Yes. I have been waiting without knowing I was doing so.”

“Here, just a moment.”

A moment.

“You’re sure.”

“Yes. – Oh.”

“Am I hurting you?”

“No.”

“You’re _crying_.”

“I am only - feeling things.”

Chaz had an appealingly wicked grin.

“I should hope so.” Another moment. “Ah, there. Not too fast. Don’t rush.”

* * *

“Breathe. Long and slow. Here, I’ve got you, angel.” A shuffle and rearrangement of limbs. “Open for me, beautiful. -- So soft. Let me in. _There._”

An almost animal sound, but blissful at the same time it was guttural.

“Too fast?”

“No.”

“Is it all right – “

“Please."

“Slow. I want this to last.”

_“Please.”_

“I’ll help you. Since you ask so nicely. Like this?”

_“Ohhh. _Yes.”

“You’re all around me. I’m holding you. I don’t feel anything but you.”

A shimmer in the dimness, the iridescence of white wings as they cracked open to envelop Crowley and stretch nearly from side to side of the small room. Light sifted from them.

“_Fill us at daybreak with your love, so that we can sing for joy,” _gasped Aziraphale.

“Well, _now_ you are well and truly blaspheming, angel. Here – let me help you blaspheme a little more.”

A wordless, ascending wail, muted in the feather pillows. “Please, now.”

“Yes, sing, angel. Like that. I want to always make you sing like that.” Crowley shuddered. “Only you, my wicked angel. Always and only you.”

* * *

“There was never anything like this Before – before – “

This was what it was like to strain for air, to be in a body that could break. It felt like breaking. She pulled at air for the luxury of doing it.

“Before what?”

“Before – anything – _ever_.”

“Are you all right? I never want to hurt you.”

“No – no, it is _all _all right. You must not stop.”

"Bella. Bella, Bella, Bella."

* * *

“_Thy body is white, like the roses in the garden of the Queen of Arabia_,” misquoted Aziraphale drowsily. He rarely slept, but at times like this he visited sleep’s borderlands.

“Oh, angel. Not _Wilde_. Think how badly that play ended.” A shift, an arm across the soft, pink midsection. “You did fancy his work a lot, didn't you?”

“Oscar was brilliant. We were never lovers, though. I never thought of anyone but you.”

A short silence. “I’ll tell you some of the things you don’t know about me, if you want.”

“If it’s you, I always _want_, dear.” The angel’s tone was playful and reassuring at once.

“It’s just that some of them - may hurt to know, if you love me. I Fell. Demon. Not pretty at times.”

“I’m listening. I shan’t stop listening. I’m here, I’ll always be here.”

* * *

“That – was amazing. It was like – you were vibrating. _Buzzing_. It went right through me – you had this glow, red and dark, I know I sound mental, it was like wings beating. This stuff is… maybe it’s just you.”

The sodium-vapor light outside the window angled across their bodies in the dimness. Chaz tilted the blind.

“I still hardly know anything about you, but I really fancy you.”

“I – fancy you too.”

“Budge over a bit, love.”

“Oh. You will sleep now? I should try that.”

“You are absolutely the pip. Come here.”

* * *

“Sleep, my darling. I’ll watch.”

Red hair fanned over the pillowslip, long limbs at too many angles, amber eyes obscured in deep slumber. _I worship you._

If it was blasphemy, let someone else care about it.

* * *

The video-game arcade was closing. “Here we are, you can tell this is where we come in, like.”

“Put out all your chocolates and that?”

“Saved this one. We orta be able to take back just one.”

“I saved two.”

* * *

_Sweetly shapen, terrible, full of thunders,  
Clothed with the wind's wings._

_\-- Swinburne, _Sapphics__

**Author's Note:**

> Written largely because the question of how Bella/Beelzebub is going to deal with the mortal who is clearly keen on her had truly reached the "fish or cut bait" stage. (I have to say, her decision surprised me.) But also to write the makeup sex. Who doesn't like to write hot makeup sex?
> 
> The lines Beelzebub quotes to Crowley in St. James' Park are, again, directly from a modern handfasting ritual.
> 
> Aziraphale's tender blasphemy is from Psalm 90. More completely: "How much longer will your anger last? Have pity, O Lord, on your servant! Fill us at daybreak with your love, so that we can sing for joy." 
> 
> The title popped into my head right when Aziraphale spread his wings around Crowley, and insisted on my using it, even though it doesn't tell you much about the fic outside that exact moment. Swinburne and lust just go together like tea and, well, crumpets. If you enjoy my take on horny, tender angels and demons, consider toddling around to check out "I'll Come When You Call Me," "Give Me Your Hand, If We Be Friends," and "Plush Toys," otherwise categorized as "CopperBeech gets the Ineffable Idiots off the dime at last in three different ways."
> 
> Come say hello on Tumblr @CopperPlateBeech


End file.
